For many of us, high school still exists in our not too distant memory. Friday night football games, homecoming dances and graduation really did not happen all that long ago. It can be the most awkward time in a person’s life; full of drama, heavy eyeliner and messy love lives. It was also full of friends you’ve known since you were in diapers, sports teams that felt like family and, for us lucky ones, teachers who truly cared about your future.
As a college sophomore, high school feels like it was five minutes ago. So three weeks ago, when the opportunity arose to venture back to high school, this time as a teacher, I was a little intimidated. I’m not a teacher. I’m not even majoring in education. But I love to write, and I love creativity and imagination. Of course I jumped at the chance to teach creative writing to students who have some really important things to say.
The high school I am volunteering at isn’t your average high school. It is designed to allow students who live with extraordinary circumstances to recieve a high school diploma in ways that fit their needs. Some of them have kids of their own, are homeless, are orphans, or have been removed from terrible living situations. Classes are shortened, days are organized differently, and after school activities are built into the school day. Like creative writing club.
I’ve learned more from these kids so far than I feel like I’ve taught them in our two Fridays together.
High school students aren’t always kids.
Some of these students have experienced more pain in eighteen years than some people experience in a lifetime. Some work full time jobs after school and help raise siblings or even their own kids. Some have incredibly adult respondsbilities sadled on their shoulders, and they carry that weight with them throughout their days. And this doesn’t just apply to students at alternative schools. It can be any student at any school. Teachers sometimes seem to forget that while their students are under the age of eighteen, they are not necessarily still kids.
Creativity isn’t always pretty.
Creativity isn’t always fairies running around fields of daises looking for princes. Creativity isn’t always happy and beautiful. Creativity can be dark and unfortunate. It can be rough and unedited. But that’s the point. Creativity is what comes from our imaginations, good or bad, no matter what.
Writing is so much more than essays.
Writing can be personal. It can be a complete telling of a story, or it can be an excerpt. It can be structured or messy or even somewhere in between. It can make sense and have a plot or it can lead your mind to unfamiliar places with no real direction. Writing can be an outlet, a place for unintelligable thoughts or unfulfilled dreams. Writing can bring you places you never knew existed. It isn’t just what you do to pass a rhetoric class.
If you want people to listen, be worth listening to.
The biggest problem I’ve run into as a “teacher” is trying to get students to listen to me. They have phones, laptops and a hundred other thoughts to drown you out with. I’ve learned that unless the lesson is interesting or has some kind of obvious piece of usefulness, it’s a waste of breath. So be interesting. Even if the subject matter is boring, make it lively. Show that you find it interesting. Or show that you don’t, at least you’ll seem slightly credible.
I am by no means a teacher. Real teachers who teach and are successful in doing so are superheros. But I am able to show students that writing is fun and scary and everything in between.
If you are interested in finding out more about teaching creative writing in Eastern Iowa, click here.